An integrated photoreceptor circuit can generally be made in a silicon semiconductor substrate. The photosensitive area of the photoreceptor circuit can include an array or matrix of photosensitive elements, such as photodiodes, or a particular configuration of several adjacent photosensitive elements. The processing unit of the photoreceptor circuit processes the signals supplied by the elements of the photosensitive area, while taking account of the quantity of light picked up by each photosensitive element.
Usually, in order to make a photoreceptor circuit, portions of the processing unit area can surround the photosensitive area. With this distribution of the two areas of the photoreceptor circuit, the electric contact pads of the photoreceptor circuit are generally distributed all around the photosensitive area for example in a uniform manner, which leads to a waste of space. This arrangement of the contact pads may also depend upon an electrical connection to corresponding contact pads of a conventional support on which the photoreceptor circuit may be mounted.
Some of the contact pads of the photoreceptor circuit mounted on the support or a connection grid are each connected by a metal wire to a corresponding connection pad of the support or the connection grid. Once the electrical connection has been established with the used contact pads of the photoreceptor circuit, an encapsulation operation recovers at least the processing unit area, which could be sheltered from light. A light passage is, however, left above the photosensitive area.
When integrated photoreceptor circuits of the prior art are made, as indicated above, no measures are taken as regards the placing of the contact pads and photoreceptor circuit areas in order to reduce the size of the circuit. The placing of the contact pads is generally devised to facilitate assembly on a support or a grid to obtain a conventional optoelectronic module or component of well defined size. This type of conventional optoelectronic module or component can take the form, for example, of a DIL or SOIC type component. Consequently, the photoreceptor circuit is not made in an optimum manner to satisfy current requirements to reduce the size of any optoelectronic component made, which is a drawback.